How Should We Pray? (Part 2) Praying for God's Will to Be Done and For Our Daily Bread

How does God want us to pray? What did Jesus teach us about prayer during His time on earth? Learn more about The Lord's Prayer and how Jesus taught us to pray today.

Today we are continuing our series on The Lord's Prayer as we walk through the way in which Jesus taught us to pray. It is important to remember that this is not a legalistic situation and you are not bound to only pray these words. The key is to understand what Jesus tells us we should be praying for and making that a part of our prayer lives. 

So as we dive into the next part of our series, let us learn from what our Savior is teaching us in His word.

Your Will Be Done (On Earth As It Is In Heaven)

When we pray "your will be done", what we are really praying is "God, no matter how I feel in the moment, and no matter what I desire at any given time, your ways are always, always best, and I want to do everything I can to live those out".

And honestly, that prayer is terrifying! Our human instinct is to search for comfort, ease, and whatever it is that makes us happy. Comfort is nice. Ease can be refreshing, and happiness can come from God-given gifts. But if our life revolves around those things, then we don't really desire God's will above all else. And if we do, then we are going to have to give up on always finding ease and comfort.

God has laid out clearly for us what His will is: That we would follow Jesus (John 8:12, 1 Timothy 2:3-4), that we would obey God's commands (1 John 2:3-4), and that we would give thanks continuously (1 Thessalonians 5:18). When we pray that God's will be done, we are asking Him to help us live out His will, that others would also do His will, and that throughout all the world's events, He would remain sovereign and do whatever is best. We are also asking that He reveal to us the path He would like us to take whenever we reach a fork in the road and we aren't sure which way to go. We are asking Him to guide our steps even in our confusion.

Sounds like a tall order, right? But God wants us to pray this way. He wants His children to want His will. He has it all under control, and He wants us to trust that, and be joyful over it.

Give Us Our Daily Bread

Asking God to give us our daily bread sounds pretty simple (probably because it is). Daily bread means "daily provisions" or "what we need to survive". So when we pray "give us this day our daily bread", we are calling out to God to provide our most basic needs. And since Matthew 6:26-34 makes it clear to us that we don't need to worry about this. God sees us and here's our prayers. He cares for us and will take care of us.

But I believe that when we pray this section of the prayer, we can also acknowledge that God is the one who provides all things that we need- not just food and clothing. We need Him to daily provide strength, perseverance, faith, His presence, etc. In other words, we need spiritual daily bread as well. Only God can feed and clothe us spiritually, and as we seek Him for daily physical bread, we can also seek Him for daily spiritual bread. Jesus didn't separate the two, and I don't believe that we have to either. But as your pray, just be aware that God is the provider of all we need, and we need Him to bestow all those things to us. So in your hearts, let "daily bread" be both a physical and spiritual cry for provision. God is the giver of both.

Forgive Our Debts As We Forgive Our Debtors

Praying for forgiveness of our debts just means that we are asking God to forgive us of our sins and wrong-doings. But Jesus didn't tell us to stop there. Instead, Jesus makes a point by adding "as we forgive our debtors". In this short phrase, Jesus is pointing to the fact that if we refuse to extend grace and forgiveness to others, He will not extend forgiveness to us (Matthew 6:15).

In the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Jesus illustrates this point further.
He tells a story of a man who owes a large amount of money to the king, but he doesn't have the money, so he begs the king to have mercy on him. The king decides to be compassionate and forgive his debts and keep the man out of prison.

But when the man returned home, he found one of his own servants who owed him some money and began choking him. His servant begged him to have mercy on him, as he could not repay the debt. But the man (the very same man who had been given mercy by the king), refused to give mercy to his servant and he had him thrown in jail.

This is what the Bible says happens next (Matthew 18:32-35):

"Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

So, my friends, just as God gave us forgiveness through Jesus, be sure to extend forgiveness to those who sin against you, too.

Next week is the last installment of our series on The Lord's Prayer. I hope you found this post helpful and I hope you'll come back for next week's!


Read Part One Here: The Lord's Prayer Part 1